Question

I need to POST a big string (>2mb) to my heroku app from the client using javascript.

Then I need to store the string in cloudfiles or s3.

What is the best way to do this, taking into account the limitations of Heroku?

Answer 1

The best way to deal with large file and heroku is to use javascript to post it directly to s3 (or your final destination), then use a callback to hook it up to your model.

The main reason is this — heroku will timeout on any request taking longer than 30s, so if there is any risk that you uploading will take more than that, then you HAVE to bypass heroku (note: I have learned this from experience)

There a bunch of options to accomplish this depending on what you requirements are:

• d2s3 — Direct to S3
• plupload — flash uploader with progress bar, and lots of goodies, supports bulk uploading (this is what I currently use)
• uploadify — good alternative to plupload — maybe simpler when not working bulk uploading
• swfupload — another option

Note: none of these are super simple to setup

I wish that there was a simpler alternative, it is amazing to me that something as fundamental as file uploading is this difficult.